Duck blinds run the gamut of sizes, designs and features, based on the whims and resources of their owners. Some are very basic, while others are elaborate. I once built a blind with a flush toilet. A friend constructed a pit blind with a rec room complete with pool table and wide-screen TV. Another friend converted a small houseboat into a “floating island” for hunting along sloughs on the Mississippi River. He and his partners slept inside, cooked breakfast in the galley, then stepped outside to shoot along the rail.

However, fanciness and effectiveness have no correlation in designing and building duck blinds. It’s not that fancy blinds can’t be effective, but effective blinds certainly don’t have to be fancy. In fact, one of the best blinds I ever built in terms of fooling ducks was an afterthought that a buddy and I threw together one afternoon with materialscosting less than $40.

We’d obtained hunting rights to a flooded grain field bordering the Obion River in west Tennessee. This river is a natural flyway between two refuges in this duck-rich wintering ground. When conditions are right, mallards funnel up this bottom like honeybees swarming a new hive.

My partners and I planned on hunting from a large floating blind in the middle of the field. We’d built, delivered and off-loaded the blind on dry ground earlier that fall. However, as the season drew near, normal rains failed to come, and we didn’t have the capability to pump water. Just prior to opening day our blind was still high and dry on the edge of the field. We did have some water in the lower swags, and ducks were using them, but the blind was a long way from the birds.

So, we built a temporary blind in the best hole the afternoon before opening morning. The result was one of the simplest, most effective setups from which I’ve hunted.

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